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Paul Hogan says he is desperate to spend his final years in Australia after a debilitating condition ravaged his health and left him too weak to carry out basic tasks on his own.
The actor, 83 – famed for his rugged appearances in the popular Crocodile Dundee film franchise – has struggled with muscle wastage and dramatic weight loss after being diagnosed with retroperitoneal fibrosis, a disorder in which inflammation and extensive scar tissue occurs in the abdominal cavity.
Discussing the condition during an interview with A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw – her last before she leaves Nine’s flagship program after 17 years – Hogan revealed the benign growth has wrapped around the abdominal aorta and pressed on his kidney.
And he admits the devastating impact on his health has left him pining to leave the $3.5million Venice Beach home he shares with son Chance, 24, and return to the relative tranquility of his home country.
Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan (pictured) has shared his debilitating health struggles, admitting he’s desperate to spend his last years back home in Australia
He said: ‘[I’ve] been better. I had a problem on the aorta in the kidney and the treatment fixed it, but it shrunk me.
‘I just… I’ve lost all my body fat and the muscles all shrank and the strength has come back, because it left me feeble. I get Chance to open jars for me.’
He added: ‘Quite a few of my friends on diets hate me for it because I try and eat everything fatty and lardy you can think of. Everything they’re not allowed to have. I can’t put on an ounce.’
The actor was prescribed corticosteroids to shrink the growth, but now needs to regain his strength after the health scare dramatically changed his physique.
‘I just… I’ve lost all my body fat and the muscles all shrank and the strength has come back, because it left me feeble. I get Chance to open jars for me,’ he said
Hogan said the steroid treatment was worse than the disease.
‘They shrink your muscles and [they’re] supposed to make you fat, but I got thinner and thinner and thinner,’ Hogan revealed.
‘I’m now in the business of trying to put a bit of fat on… because you feel the cold too much when you’ve got no body fat.’
The actor and comedian, 83, sat down for an interview with A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw (right) – her last before she leaves Nine’s flagship program after 17 years
Hogan now has a pacemaker fitted and is ‘being held together by string’.
The Golden Globe winner said he always ‘maintained’ his fitness up until he was 79, and admits he is lucky to have been healthy for so long.
‘I was still fit. I’d still take out most 40 year olds,’ he said.
‘And then I turned 80 and it’s lovely that saying that “turning 80 is not for sissies” because things start to fall apart.’
Hogan is desperate to return home to Australia as his health declines, but says he can’t leave his son Chance alone in California.
Hogan wants to return home to Australia as his health declines, but says he can’t leave his son Chance (left) alone in California
Crocodile Dundee remains Australia’s most commercially successful film of all time
He shares Chance with ex-wife Linda Kozlowski, his co-star from Crocodile Dundee.
‘I’m not in the place I’m meant to be, but I’m not allowed to complain about anything,’ he continued.
‘I’ve had such a gifted life. I’ve had so many wonderful things happen to me without deserving them so I shouldn’t complain but, yeah, ideally I’d rather be back in Sydney because I miss the rest of my family there.’
Hogan is pictured with his second wife Linda Kozlowski in Beverly Hills, California, in the year 2000. The couple divorced in 2014 after 25 years together
Hogan revealed last month he’d been ‘homesick for years’.
‘I miss the people, the ambience – and there’s something you just can’t put your finger on, but there’s something about Australia that is friendlier and more laid-back,’ he told The Daily Telegraph.
‘It never takes itself seriously – there’s no arrogance like there is in other places.’
Hogan is best known for playing heart-throb adventurer Mick Dundee in the 1986 romantic adventure Crocodile Dundee, alongside his future wife Linda Kozlowski
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